But again just to clarify, you're not "pointing out" that Musks battery farm is too small for this purpose either?

It matters not if the trial discovers, too late, that a 100MWh is suitable for providing 24-7 baseload power from a smaller wind power capacity which I can calculate now by rearranging my formula.

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But, once again for clarification, you're not saying that the battery farm is too small for its purpose?

Musk's battery has been promoted as a solution for South Australia and its 1600 MW and growing wind farms and that's why Musk got his money.

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Maybe in some sections of the pop-science media, but not by Musk and not by S.Australia it hasn't.
Musk has promoted it as a solution to the energy problems that left the area in blackouts, and reasoned that a battery farm of the size he is building would suffice to resolve those issues.
I think it's on the lower end of what he thought might be needed, but still, it's in the region.
He also sold it as a means to be able to test whether wind power could be used as a base-load.
If, through that testing, it is established that the storage capacity of his batteries will allow a baseload of 20MW from wind power then surely that is a successful test?
If it is only 10MW then it is also a successful test.
What it then allow, because of that testing, is not only a more accurate calculation of what storage would be required to provide a certain baseload from wind power, but also the demonstration that it is even practically possible.
Both are what will likely be part of the test.
And it is this testing capability that is being promoted, not the batteries being built as the solution to overall problem,

Musk would never have got his money for a battery for a small 20 MW wind farm so he didn't sell it on that honest prospectus, but misled to make the sale on a false prospectus and that's what all the hype was about.

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He's not being paid anything for a battery to allow baseload from wind power.
He is being paid for two things that I can see:
1. The primary thing is the load balancing that the batteries will provide to their existing grid, to help solve the short term need to prevent further blackouts.
2. It enables the testing as to what extent wind power can provide baseload energy requirements, and the storage requirement for that to happen.

That's what he is being paid for.
Sure, he's a businessman and is paid to publicise.
But he's not lying.
Do journalists possibly misunderstand to try to sensationalise the story?
It wouldn't be the first time such has happened, would it.

KittamaruAshes to ashes, dust to dust. Adieu, Sciforums.Valued Senior Member

Tesla noted on Twitter that this is just the “first of many solar+storage projects going live,” after the company discussed how it might help with Puerto Rico’s ongoing recovery efforts with PR Governor Ricardo Rossello following an exchange between the Governor and Musk on Twitter. Rossello and Puerto Rican Chief Innovation Officer Glorimar Ripoli proposed turning the territory into a flagship example of what Tesla’s solar technologies can do for the world.

Tesla has also been shipping its home Powerwall battery storage units to the island for help restoring the grid, and Musk himself donated $250,000 of his personal money to support relief efforts. Tesla also postponed its electric semi truck reveal event to November in order to focus on helping establish facilities like this one in Puerto Rico.

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I think your claim that Musk is purely in it "for da money" is patently false... why else would he through a quarter million of his personal funds into relief efforts in PR?

A $300 million contract to help rebuild Puerto Rico's electrical infrastructure, which was awarded to a small, two-year-old Montana company that had only two employees when Hurricane Maria struck the U.S. territory, has sparked calls for an investigation from both Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill.

In addition to its size and relative inexperience, the fact that Whitefish Energy Holdings is based in Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke's hometown of Whitefish, Mont., is fueling questions about how Whitefish Energy Holdings secured the lucrative contract. The former Montana congressman's son also had a summer job at a Whitefish construction site.

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How is a two person company going to handle rebuilding Puerto Rico's infrastructure...
Oh, right, because Joe Colonnetta (the equity firm that finances Whitefish Energy) donated heavily to a certain presidents campaign... and the CEO of Whitefish Andy Techmanski is a close friend with the Interior Secretary...

You want corruption and greed? Why not go after actual corruption and greed... such as soaking a ravaged island for $300 Million...

I'm all in favour of sticking plasters. If a nurse comes along and applies a sticking plaster then it right to love her for being a caring person who would do such a kind thing. However she would not deserve the Nobel Prize for medicine for doing so.

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Agreed. She's just doing her job.

My issue with the battery sticking plaster to a mostly fossil-fuel powered grid is that it has been hyped up to be more than it is

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I don't think that battery storage has been hyped any more than any other form of storage has.

For example, here in Southern California we've been hearing a lot of hype about the LEAPS (Lake Elsinore Pumped Storage) project over the past ten years. It would generate 500 megawatts! Create a new lake! Be environmentally friendly! Generate jobs!

Ten years later, no LEAPS. But during that time, very quietly, we've installed over 100 megawatts of battery storage - and that storage prevented blackouts after we had a massive natural gas leak from a storage reservoir in Eliso Canyon. One of the benefits of those "plasters" is that you can add as much as you want, when you want.

Musk has encouraged that hype at every turn to secure his deal. Profits before truth and that's dishonest.

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Given that he just donated a quarter million in cash to Puerto Rico - and built a battery-backed solar power system for a children's hospital there - at least he's putting disaster relief before profits.

It sounds like this project was done as a humanitarian effort, at cost to Tesla. So... yeah. Sorry Scott, but you best have some damn good evidence to support your claim that he's purely "in it for the money"...

Has anyone developed vertical "turbo sails" to generate electric power? They provide "thrust" for sailboats, which might be convertible into electrical power?

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Turbosails merely convert wind power into thrust, with the benefit of being able to operate at large angles of attack without the need to change the direction of the sail.
Like sails they merely create a constant thrust in a given direction.
If the turbo sail is static then you're looking at converting a constant pressure into electricity.
It is not straightforward, but I wouldn't think impossible, but not sure of how efficient it would end up being.
Thinking off the top of my head, you would need some way of cycling the thrust...
If you could turn the pressure generated by the turbo sail on and off then you could use the pressure to create a piston, which in turn could be used to drive a turbine.
But the turbo sail would effectively be switched off 50% of the time (if possible) as it cycles on/off/on/off etc.
So the efficiency would drop considerably, I'd think.

Turbosails merely convert wind power into thrust, with the benefit of being able to operate at large angles of attack without the need to change the direction of the sail.
Like sails they merely create a constant thrust in a given direction.

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Not necessarily, a simple wind vane would be able to keep the sail at a correct angle.

If the turbo sail is static then you're looking at converting a constant pressure into electricity.
It is not straightforward, but I wouldn't think impossible, but not sure of how efficient it would end up being.
Thinking off the top of my head, you would need some way of cycling the thrust...
If you could turn the pressure generated by the turbo sail on and off then you could use the pressure to create a piston, which in turn could be used to drive a turbine.
But the turbo sail would effectively be switched off 50% of the time (if possible) as it cycles on/off/on/off etc.
So the efficiency would drop considerably, I'd think.
But really just guesswork on my part.

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How does a steam engine convert a steady steam pressure into rotating wheels? Is that not achieved by the use of "flywheels"?

The thought occurred to me after watching acres of windmills spaced far apart, which seemed to me a waste of space, even as the windmills themselves work great, but require a large area from the size of the rotating blades.

It occurred to me that turbo sails would require much less space as they function vertically instead of horizontally, and actually have a larger surface area than bladed mills, and perhaps have an added advantage of less distortion in airflow?

Not necessarily, a simple wind vane would be able to keep the sail at a correct angle.

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I simply meant that the turbo sail is designed to give forward thrust from a wider range of wind directions than a standard sail.
The direction that the sail points can of course be changed, but then you may as well just use a normal sail.

How does a steam engine convert a steady steam pressure into rotating wheels? Is that not achieved by the use of "flywheels"?

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All the sail does is create a pressure in a certain direction.
Well, more accurately, it creates a force from a pressure differential caused by wind flow along the aerofoil shape, so apologies if that has confused.
When pushing against whatever is restricting its motion, a pressure is created.
It may be a constant force at that point, but no work can be done, as work requires movement.
The only time such a set-up would do work is if the mast was allowed some ability to move.
During such a movement it could push in a piston, but then, as said previously, it would need to reset to its previous position.
The only object that would do work in your set up is the mast.

With a steam engine there is a working fluid that does the work.
The system can thus do work for as long as there is fluid to do so.

So it is not the pressure person ex it the ability to do work that is important.

The thought occurred to me after watching acres of windmills spaced far apart, which seemed to me a waste of space, even as the windmills themselves work great, but require a large area from the size of the rotating blades.

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Yes, this is an issue, as well as the noise.
There are new variants being developed and tested, relying on vortices created when an object is in a wind flow.
These would be bladeless and quieter, but testing so far suggests they produce power far less reliably, and damage quite easily.

It occurred to me that turbo sails would require much less space as they function vertically instead of horizontally, and actually have a larger surface area than bladed mills, and perhaps have an added advantage of less distortion in airflow?

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But the two work in very different ways.
The windmills convert wind flow into a rotation.
The blades are capable of doing work (I.e. moving) unhindered for as long as there is a wind to flow against the blades.
A turbo sail converts the same wind flow into a lateral (forward relative to the sail) motion, but because they are stuck in the ground it ends up as just a pressure between the sail and the earth/supporting structure, with no further capability of doing work.

Imagine if you could hold the blades of the windmill still in your hand so that it didn't rotate.
You would feel a pressure against your hand as it wanted to move, right.
This is what the turbo sail would be like, simply pushing against the ground as it wanted to move forward.
You can't generate energy from that.
You must be able to do work.

So, they are demonstrating that wind power can supply a baseload level of energy to compete with traditional sources like coal and gas. How is that relying on the battery bank to supply all (or even the majority) of power for hours at a time?

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A wind-powered system to provide baseload requires to rely on an energy store to provide most of the power during wind calms, or low wind availability.

My understanding of it is, the battery bank acts as an emergency reserve in times of peak load and a load balancing device the rest of the time. Emergency power, as in it can keep the lights on during what would otherwise have been a brownout/blackout while other sources are spun up.

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That's the sticking plaster to a mostly fossil fuel gas-powered system with a side-order of wind.

So then, what, precisely, is your issue with the Battery Bank? You keep harping on it not having the capacity to supply the entire grid... at no point do they claim this is there intent... so you are angry that it isn't going to do something it was never intended to do?

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The battery has been fraudulently misrepresented as a method for which to transform South Australia to renewable energy.

Yes yes, I've read your links and pretty pictures, and they are really cool. I appreciate them, and they are why I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt right now that you are, in fact, an intelligent person rather than someone spouting nonsense.

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If this was an art forum, you'd make a great critic. In a science forum, however ...

Are you assuming purely wind power as the supply, which does not seem to be the immediate goal? If so, then there is the issue - you are operating on a faulty premise.

Again, you are equating the battery bank to the wind supply, and I still have not seen anything to indicate that was what they intended.

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It is stated clearly here in bold -

"Horndale already exports its excess energy production into the national grid, and is part of an AEMO trial into demonstrating that wind power can supply a baseload level of energy, known as frequency control and ancillary services or FCAS, to compete with traditional baseload sources like coal and gas."​

Analysts have estimated the battery should cost around $750 to $950 per kilowatt, or up to $95 million. Musk said in July the cost to Tesla would be “$50 million or more” if it failed to deliver the project on time.​

Yet the 100MWh battery station can go up in 100 days (estimated). By compare, the Ludington Pumped Storage Power Plant took about four years (call it 1460 days to be easy) to build to its original 1872 MW output and cost 315 million USD in 1969 (adjusted for inflation using a quick online calculator, that comes to about 2.1 Billion USD today).

Analysts have estimated the battery should cost around $750 to $950 per kilowatt, or up to $95 million. Musk said in July the cost to Tesla would be “$50 million or more” if it failed to deliver the project on time.​

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My apologies, I may have misread somewhere - I'll have to see if I can find where I originally sourced the $25 Million figure from. That said - ok, lets assume a five fold increase in cost (Musk has said it'd cost tesla $50 Million is they miss the deadline, for what its worth) - so $250 million then. That's still fully 1/8th the cost of the Ludington Pumped Storage Power Plant, for something that can get set up in less than 1/10th the time, and is also a brand new technology that doesn't rely on the availability of fresh water, tall hills, or natural reservoirs.

That's still fully 1/8th the cost of the Ludington Pumped Storage Power Plant, for something that can get set up in less than 1/10th the time, and is also a brand new technology that doesn't rely on the availability of fresh water, tall hills, or natural reservoirs.

Okay, I guess I'd like sources for your "lucky to last five years" figure, as well as whether or not you are factoring in the costs of maintenance and maintenance workers, etc needed for the pumped storage plant.

Also, again, you are dancing around a potential issue - does Australia have anywhere to build one of these that has the requisite reservoirs, terrain, etc near where it is needed?

If this technology was the magic bullet you seem to claim it to be, I can't imagine why it isn't more popular. Maybe people don't like having several hundreds of thousands of tons of water sitting on a hill above their town, waiting for the first fault to send it rushing down?

KittamaruAshes to ashes, dust to dust. Adieu, Sciforums.Valued Senior Member

A wind-powered system to provide baseload requires to rely on an energy store to provide most of the power during wind calms, or low wind availability.

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Indeed, it does. So since the wind station is already up and available, the issue at hand is that there have been times where it couldn't keep up with demand, resulting in brownouts and blackouts. This battery system can be quickly stood up to solve that problem in the intermediate time while a more permanent solution is found. What's your major malfunction with that?

If this was an art forum, you'd make a great critic. In a science forum, however ...

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And you'd make a great artist - however, your behavior and utterly abysmal attitude has given me no reason to believe your claim that you are a "world respected" renewable energy scientist - without proof, why should I take your word for it?

It's 5 HOURS x wind power capacity.
I come to that here where I have published my research findings.

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Yes, we already clarified that about a dozen posts ago... the problem is, you keep using 5 x generation capacity interchangeably with 5 hours worth of generation capacity. Those aren't the same thing... as anyone familiar with how batteries work could readily tell you.

"Horndale already exports its excess energy production into the national grid, and is part of an AEMO trial into demonstrating that wind power can supply a baseload level of energy, known as frequency control and ancillary services or FCAS, to compete with traditional baseload sources like coal and gas."​

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So, then, I ask you yet again - what is your problem with a stopgap solution being sold as a stopgap solution? You would rather they have no solution for the several years it would take to build a hydro plant...?

For the specification and design of renewable energy electricity generation systems which successfully smooth intermittent wind generation to serve customer demand, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and 52 weeks a year.

Adopting the recommendation derived from scientific computer modelling that the energy storage capacity be about 5 hours[see note] times the wind power capacity, the tables offer rows of previously successful modelled system configurations - row A, a configuration with no back-up power and rows B to G offering alternative ratios of wind power to back-up power. Columns consist of adjustable power and energy values in proportion to fixed multiplier factors.

The wind power generation Capacity Factor (C.F.) percentage can be adjusted too.

, the Bath County Pumped Storage Station, .. just over 3,000 MW total output. .. And it would take THREE of these stations (so almost 20 billion USD) to generate the 8,000MW Scott is saying is needed... three stations each storing ten million or more cubic meters of water.

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Rubbish. One only Bath County power station would be nearly 4 times South Australia's present needs.

I am saying the South Australia needs an energy storage of 8,000MWh, not "power generation of 8000MW"

Bath County has an energy storage of 30,931 MWh, (it can supply 3,003 MW for 10.3 hours) which is 3.8 times more than I suggested was needed.

(I have not specified the power output of the pumped-storage hydro scheme but it wouldn't need to be the wind power capacity of Australia's 1600 MW of wind turbines because the average power supplied has to be multiplied by a capacity factor, which say is 30% would mean an average power of 0.3 x 1600 MW = 480MW might suffice for present wind power 24-7 baseload needs.)

So rather than the "8000MW" power generation you thought I said was needed, something more like 480MW is all that is needed, for now.

But just to clarify, you're not "pointing out" that Musks battery farm is too small for this purpose?
But again just to clarify, you're not "pointing out" that Musks battery farm is too small for this purpose either?
But, once again for clarification, you're not saying that the battery farm is too small for its purpose?

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I am indeed pointing out that Musk's battery farm is too small to serve as a wind-powered baseload system by these factors -
* 80 times too small for South Australia's 1600MW of wind power
* 15 times too small for Hornsdale's 315MW
* 5 times too small for Hornsdale's third stage of 109MW

Maybe in some sections of the pop-science media, but not by Musk and not by S.Australia it hasn't.

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The pop-science media were misled by what was represented to them in the news conference attended by SA Premier Weatherill and Elon Musk on Friday 7 July 2017, Adelaide, South Australia.

It was the duty of those in the know to state clearly that this was a temporary fix for a mostly fossil-fuel powered system that did not and could not offer any way forward to 100% renewable energy grid in South Australia.

Musk has promoted it as a solution to the energy problems that left the area in blackouts, and reasoned that a battery farm of the size he is building would suffice to resolve those issues.
I think it's on the lower end of what he thought might be needed, but still, it's in the region.

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A sticking plaster to fossil fuel back-up to wind. I know that, you know that but that's not the impression that was given.

He also sold it as a means to be able to test whether wind power could be used as a base-load.
If, through that testing, it is established that the storage capacity of his batteries will allow a baseload of 20MW from wind power then surely that is a successful test?
If it is only 10MW then it is also a successful test.
What it then allow, because of that testing, is not only a more accurate calculation of what storage would be required to provide a certain baseload from wind power, but also the demonstration that it is even practically possible.
Both are what will likely be part of the test.
And it is this testing capability that is being promoted, not the batteries being built as the solution to overall problem,
He's not being paid anything for a battery to allow baseload from wind power.
He is being paid for two things that I can see:
1. The primary thing is the load balancing that the batteries will provide to their existing grid, to help solve the short term need to prevent further blackouts.
2. It enables the testing as to what extent wind power can provide baseload energy requirements, and the storage requirement for that to happen.

That's what he is being paid for.
Sure, he's a businessman and is paid to publicise.
But he's not lying.
Do journalists possibly misunderstand to try to sensationalise the story?
It wouldn't be the first time such has happened, would it.

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It wouldn't be the first time a snake oil salesman has fooled the customer, no.

Bath County has an energy storage of 30,931 MWh, (it can supply 3,003 MW for 10.3 hours) which is 3.8 times more than I suggested was needed.

(I have not specified the power output of the pumped-storage hydro scheme but it wouldn't need to be the wind power capacity of Australia's 1600 MW of wind turbines because the average power supplied has to be multiplied by a capacity factor, which say is 30% would mean an average power of 0.3 x 1600 MW = 480MW might suffice for present wind power 24-7 baseload needs.)

So rather than the "8000MW" power generation you thought I said was needed, something more like 480MW is all that is needed, for now.

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So we would need 10 of these Tesla stations to do that. I am curious as to the footprint of the battery farm compared to a pumped-hydro farm (I would also imagine the battery farm can be stacked vertically to some extent, should the need arise, or be put underground if desired). Still seems like this is a pretty good test-bed case for the worlds first large-scale battery farm.

It is my understanding this only provided about 30MW and was dismantled less than two decades after construction began. I am curious to know what materials they used to resist corrosion and the charge carrying abilities of salt water, and how that would affect pricing when scaled up.

Looks to be about 225MW for 8 hours, costing about half a billion to build and wouldn't be completed until 2023 - that leaves them vulnerable for six years if they started construction today and everything goes exactly as planned.

Sounds like a good idea - get the power pack station up and running, and have this project in motion as well.